Council March 22

10:05am: we begin with an acknowledgment of the unceded Mi’kmaw territory we are meeting on.

Haritha, our fabulous chair, is giving some quick recap on how we use Robert’s rule of order and generally how to discuss motions on council. This is because we have a lot of new folks on council this week- the newly elected exec and BoG reps are here for the first time in their new roles. On that note, although I have been elected BoG rep I will continue to write this live blog, as there is no incoming Member at Large.

10:09 we’re going around and introducing ourselves. The agenda is also approved.

10:12 on to the oral reports of councillors!

James, one of our DSS reps, says that he shouldn’t be here. The DSS has had difficulties holding its elections, but they will happen! They also went to sugar moon and are working with the WBOM and finances.

Hannah, the science rep, was snowed out of an academic advising session, but will be holding it this upcoming week. It’s a chance for science students to talk to upper years about their academic career.

Taylor, one of the BoG reps is up now. We’ve split our report in two. Taylor is working on the VP search committee (reviewing Kim Kierans’ last 5 years here). We’re working together on staff representation at the board, open board meetings, board structure, notice for board meetings. Taylor personally is going to work on the King’s relationship to first nations communities and on improving accessibility at King’s.

Then I went and said some things! I will fill this part in later.

Melina is up now. She is our arts rep. She starts out with congratulating consent day and the DASS convention. Went to an interesting FASS meeting last week about retention. King’s culture can be very Ontario-centric and can exclude Nova Scotian students. Wants to work on this.

Megan, the super cool J-school rep, held a feedback session. Got a lot of varied responses. Also working with students who may want to run for j-school rep next year.

10:25 Reports of the exec!

Report of the President (Alex Bryant, not to be confused with Alex McVittie): Has been working with CUPE 3902 and 3903 at University of Toronto. The outgoing exec wrote letters of suport to both. He mentions that Bottled Water Free Day and how big a success it was. The Galley Board of Directors met this week to talk about levy release and point-of-sale machines. The presidential search committee has also been meeting and receiving input from folks. Many students want the president to have an understanding of oppression and equity, academic experience, a commitment to accessibility and education and community, to be someone other than a while heterosexual male, and to work to stabilize finances. He and Aidan have also been working on the budget, which is apparently rad. The Senate Review Committee has also been meeting, which apparently involves a ton of reading. The College Task Force continues to meet. What has been taking up most of his time has been Staff Review Committee, which is working on the structure of the Galley, the Wardroom, and the ways in which they are managed. Trying to restructure the Hospitalities Manager position so that they have enough time to do their work and do it well. Hoping to hire a new HM by May 1st. THE WATCH LEVY HAS FINALLY BEEN RELEASED! The levy policy will be fixed this year. Taylor mentions that having better water fountains would contribute to a bottled water free campus.

Report of the Student Life VP (Alex McVittie, not to be confused with Alex Bryant): Changeover has been going well. Goals include consent workshops during orientation week, improving accessibility of orientation week, displaying more student art and having space for students to create this art, make videos for athletic teams to improve interest, societies newsletter, an alumni speaker series, selling athletic wear, changing the sick tray policy, and more. She has also been working with CUBE and the dodgeball tournament, which raised $400 for Halifax Humanities. In the process of reviewing the CUBE coordinator contract. Also working on awards night and k-points. Societies will hopefully be ratifying today. The Wilson room is also being worked on- we need to make sure it stays clean and in good shape now that it is designated a student space. Academic committee has been rescheduled.

Report of the Financial VP (Aidan Mcnally, who is our only Aidan. Hurray!): Working on VP search committee- there will be feedback sessions. Went to Ottawa this week with Sofia for a forum on consent culture. Sounds like this was super duper radtastic, and both she and Sofia are working on reports. Halifax was well-represented there. Budget Advisory Committee and the Watch are meeting. We have no cheques at the moment! Snow has prevented them from getting here! If you are waiting for money from the KSU, hold tight, because they will be coming eventually! Working on a travel bursary form and policy for the fall. This week, the budget is the big one. Trying to figure out how our fees are being used in the bursar’s office and how we can distinguish between different students. This budget will hopefully be very accurate. One part of this is enrolment projections- this is a big deal for the KSU budget because our funds are totally based on how may students we have. She’s been meeting with lots of folks to talk about their budget lines and how they worked with them. Also trying to increase clarity and financial literacy. Decreasing enrolment means decreasing revenue, so she has looked at places that funds can be cut. Found $9000 of wiggle room, which is great because we will not need that much. Everyone is encouraged to read a draft of the budget that will be circulated later this week.

Report of the External VP (Hannah Kaya, not to be confused with Hannah Yapphe, our Science rep): Hannah has been working on a policy and perogies meeting as a follow up to Day of Action. This week David Wheler has called on the government to work towards zero-tuition Canada, and students in Quebec recently voted to go on strike against austerity measures that negatively impact their institutions of education. She’s also been working with Union Hired Positions. There will be a local food event run by the Campus Safety Officer. Avalon workshop on justice coming up on the 25th. Bottled Water free day was a success. The CFS-NS will be electing a new women’s rep soon and Hannah will be taking over Aidan’s position as Local-11 rep.

Report of the Communications VP (Sofia Zaman): continues to find puns in her changeover document, which is really cool. TWAK happened! The General meeting is happening on the 31st!!!!!!!!!!!!!! She’s also been working on Bylaw Review committee. Attended the consent culture forum with Aidan, which was really cool. She also had a shawarma in the shawarma capital of the world. Sofia has also been working on social media stuff, live tweeting lots of things. @ksunion

11:07 ACTION ITEMS!

Students Noting Advocacy for Representative Curricula (SNARC) is seeking ratification. Meg Shield is motivating here. This society is seeking more equitable representation and diversity in the FYP curricula, including crunching the data since the founding of FYP. This sounds awesome. Motion Passes!

King’s Dark Sky Society is also looking to be ratified. Jacob Baker-Kretzmar is here to talk about this. Hoping to hold events about light pollution and how it affects all kinds of things- people, animals, energy resources, etc. Aidan asks how he plans to engage day students. Jacob comes to the sudden, illuminating realization that we’re all looking at the same sky. He also says they can provide transformation. Sofia asks if he will engage dal students. Jacob says yes, we will go to visit SMU or Dal. Taylor asks about projected expenses and preexisting places in Halifax that are working on similar issues. Jacob says they would buy snacks for meetings. Hoping to work on capital projects like lights on timers. Maybe also work with Ecology Action Centre. It passes!

Aidan moves to suspend the rules to take up item 5.4 out of order so that someone can leave.

Le Salon is requesting $85.48 for snacks for a film screening of La Nozze de Figaro. Grilled cheese will be served. Sounds super fun! Sofia asks bout how much fun this will be for non-french speaking folks. It will still be fun! Hannah mentions that this is great that it is a dry event. It passes!

Early Modern Studies Society is requesting $596.63 in non-contingent funding for Babel printing and bank fees. About $300 is for Babel printing, $300 was added as a buffer fund to start up their new bank account, which the KSU doesn’t really do. Aidan motions to amend the motion to $298.63, which includes printing fees and the $17 required to keep the bank account open. The amendment passes. Aidan mentions that EMSS has run very successful events and has always priced their requests out to the cent. Their halloween event came out under budget and their conference came out over budget. Some representatives from EMSS are here. They had a very ambitious year, and the budgeted amount just didn’t end up being enough. They are about to have an AGM and to put in a treasurer position that will have access of historical documents. Alex Bryant says that he is strongly in favour of this motion, but is disappointed that we are in the position that EMSS has had to cancel an event to make it through the year. Melina says that she is in favour of the motion. Aidan says that a lot of the unexpected costs were related to Sodexo, so policy will be created in the future to avoid this. Sofia says she in favour of this motion as a first year interested in the EMSP. Voting time! It passes!

On to Travel Bursaries!

Colleen Earle is requesting a $100 travel bursary to attend the conference of Mathematical Philosophy for Female Students at the Mathematical Center for Mathematical Philosophy at the Ludwig-Maximians University of Munich. Mathematics. This sounds like a really neat event. Aidan moves to amend the motion to $200. Aidan says that we generally have 20 $100 travel bursaries and have used 11 of them. Because this is such a larger cost than continental travel. I ask how we will deal with breaking with the tradition of $100 bursaries and when a travel bursary policy will be implemented. Aidan says we are unlikely to go through 8 more travel bursaries in this final month and that we can discuss travel bursary policy later. It passes!

The next travel bursary is a $100 amount to Haritha Popuri to attend the “Campus Days” events hosted by University of Chicago. Alex Bryant steps up and steps in as a stand-in chair during this motion so that Haritha’s involvement with the motion does not affect her chair-ness. This bursary would help cover almost all the flight along with funding from another source. This would help us spread the King’s name and would support Haritha in an installation about housing and discrimination. Haritha mentions that the project she is planning in Chicago is based on the things she has learned at King’s. This trip would help her network and do this important project. Voting time! it passes! Haritha is amazing! Alex returns to his rightful sight and Haritha returns to her throne.

11:50 HONORARIA aka MAKE IT RAIN

First up, $2200 for Michaela Sam. Alex Bryant motivates. He says Michaela has been absolutely incredible. Put so much work in to things that were and were not reported at council. She deserves this and more. Of course it passes!

(Sofia is “Sorry… For everything.”)

Next, $2200 for Alex Bryant. Alex McVittie motivates. Alex has done a ton of work on societies, athletics, students, and more. It passes! Alex Bryant abstains.

Next up, $2200 for Anika Roberts-Stahlbrand. Hannah Kaya motivates. Anika is extremely passionate, helped rebuild the position, made the Day of Action happen, and makes us ridiculously joyful with her YOLOdarity. It passes!

Next, $2200 for Emily Rendell-Watson. Aidan McNally motivates. Emily does SO much work. This year especially, when finances have been in flux. She is a very strong leader. Follow her on instagram #greatnorthcollective #VSCOcam. It passes!

Finally, $2200 for Jacob Baker-Kretzmar. Sofia Zaman motivates. Jacob has thrown himself into the position. He does hilarious TWAKs, cares a ton, and has really revamped the bylaws. It passes!

Alex Bryant motions to recess for 20 minutes! #SodexoLyfe It passes! See you in a few!

12:29pm: WE ARE BACK. Now we are appointing folks to some search committees

First up, the chair search committee. This committee includes the outgoing SLVP, the President, and the chair as a non-voting member. Taylor mentions that we should make these committees diverse. I nominate Liz McElroy. Alex Nominates Laura Thorne and Emma Clarke.

Liz is a first year student looking to be involved. Very responsible and a positive attitude. Laura is very excited about this and is a 4th year. Emma also wants to be involved in the union and is very excited and interested. We vote on filling the three blanks with the three names. It passes.

Next, the orientation week coordinator search committee. This one is a slightly larger commitment. This committee includes the outgoing and incoming President, first year rep, and a few others. Alex nominates Sarah Hayword. Melina self-nominates. I nominate Kristen Thompson, Mikylah Gillis, and Sadie Cunningham.

Sarah Hayword has worked in hiring environments and would bring awesome experience. Melina says she is close to the event and got to see reports on it in council. Time on council has prepared her in terms of communication, etc. Kristen has a strong voice and a good mind for planning. Karis is involved with chapel and has been involved in planning frosh before. Mikylah Gillis and Sadie Cunningham are both first year students looking to be involved who would be great here. Melina, Karis, and Sarah fill the blanks. We now vote! Onward and upward! It passes!

Now we are going in to voting for Sustainability Officer Search Committee. Hannah Kaya says this is a complicated position. They deal with sustainability on campus. The EVP, outgoing sust officer, and some other sit on this committee. Hannah nominates Nichola Proteck (sp?), Paisley Conrad, and Abby Boron.

Nichola cares deeply for sust issues. Has been involved in sust for a while. Very passonate. Paisley is very into sustainability. “Paisley is a sustainability goddess.” Abby Boron is very passionate about the College and about Sustainability. The three blanks are filled with the three names. Voting time! It passes!

Nuala has participated in elections and brings insight to the position. She sits on finance committee. Elan is very excited about this. She is inexperienced but would be a good asset and will hopefully be involved in the union as the years pass. Liam is very excited to learn and to participate. Melina is our arts rep. She is awesome, sits on various committee and is our arts rep. The blanks are filled with the names. It passes!

Now on to the council scribe committee! Sofia nominates Moira McLoughlin and Allison Lord. I nominate LiZ McElroy.

Moira is involved via sports and would be committed to this in that sense. Ally is very thoughtful and Sofia has lots of great conversations with her about the union. Liz works really hard and “values the written word”. The blanks are filled with the names. It passes!

On to the CUBE coordinator search committee. The CUBE coordinators do sports things. The search committee has the SLVP, alex hall president and chair of bays. Alex McVittie nominates Paisley Conrad and Curran McConnell. Paisley says that CUBE is vital and she believes in this although she has limited athletic abilities, just like most of King’s! Curran is a first year and is very enthusiastic about the union and has a very positive attitude. The blanks are filled with the names! It passes!

1:03 NEW BUSINESS!

Alex Bryant moves that we elect 3 members at large to the campus safety coordinator search committee. This position is very important. The in and outgoing EVPs sit on this. Hannah nominates Bryson Morris, Niki Fole, Caitlin Mieklejohn, Robert Halperin. I nominate Charlotte Sullivan.

Bryson is involved with equity and advocacy. They are involved in PRIDE, day of action, and more. Very excited about this. In 3rd year. Niki Foley has been looking at getting involved in the union and is enthusiastic about this. Caitlin is very involved in equity issues, especially queer and trans rights. Has a lot of experience that would make her valuable here. Robert is deeply involved in equity issues and very much wants to be involved in the union. Charlotte is very into women’s rights and social justice, very cool and understands the importance of this position. The blanks will be filled with Niki Foley, Caitlin, and Bryson. The motion passes.

Alex proposes we meet on April 5th for our next council meeting. It is mentioned that this is easter weekend. We decide to wait to make the call on this. The date will be set by march 24th at 10pm.